* * *

  With a sharp and swift movement, like a snake in an attack, Stepan's hand rushed forward, to the face of the man who had not expected his movement, sharply grabbing the man's nose and in one movement putting it back in pce. Painfully, but quickly and safely for his health. Not for nothing, a couple of spirits of healing aspects were backing him up. The man shrieked in frightened surprise and from the sharp fsh of pain, and immediately rexed when the coolness from the shaman's fingers flowed down his face, and he bulged his eyes at the realization that his face did not hurt anymore. In fact, Stepan did a few other small things to improve his health, but he didn't publicize them. He didn't want to be seen as a healer, so everyone bothered him with requests. The injured man groaned and mumbled, spitting up blood and mucus with a disgusting wheeze, sucking in air with pleasure through his newly working nose.

  "Don't touch your nose for a few days, and don't drink anything but boiled water. And get up and sit down slowly, take care of your head." Stepan orders in a stern and slightly bored voice, wiping his hands on a clean cloth. "Your guts have been kicked, and your face has been beaten too. There's no need to make it worse."

  The out-of-breath brawler, who had come back from another binge - a fair one, for his sister had married and the bosses had given permission for him to attend the event - mumbled something grateful, slightly beaten, visibly bruised, and contented. He'd have to lie down anyway. For such a thing, they would not pat his head and deduct a share of the fee, and if he worsened his own condition, he could be thrown out of work. Insurance policies have not been invented here, and the democracy and humanity of the chief winemaker and his assistants have quite clear limits. If he had suffered at work or from the attack of dashing people, it would still be possible to think about something, but he just got into a drunken brawl. Yes, in his free time, but by himself, and no one dragged him in there

  "You, your magic, just didn't see how I decorated that scraggly asshole!" With a satisfied smile, he parries, though, in fact, he is clearly not exactly honest, which is immediately confirmed by the spirits of words. "He got hit much harder, ugh! But, this, thank you, so, everything, as you said, so I'll do."

  The half of a silver coin handed to the shaman, purely formally, was not a payment for the healer's work, which he had no right to take without permission to practice, but just gratitude for the service and help. When they don't want to call a guild representative, that's exactly what they do, and if they don't get cocky, they always close their eyes to such gifts and gratitude. Especially, if everything happens on the territory of a closed farmstead where no one will talk much, and if something happens, they will give the necessary testimony. Stepan accepted the payment, took one st look at the victim's nose, and exhaled, leaving for lunch to the grumbling of his own stomach.

  Working for Trabia turned out to be really not hard. Regurly appearing mouse corpses completely compensated for the new gifted man's stay at the workpce, and his regur pale appearance and fatigue also prevented him not being bothered with additional tasks. The manager Pirius, it should be said, took the solution to the rodent problem as a personal blessing, because the task had been assigned to him. For several months in a row, he either received reduced pay or simply listened to the scolding of his superiors. The man not only provided maximum assistance to Stepan but also ensured that he was constantly given a portion of sweets to eat. The rest of the gifted also indulged in sweets, but only if they were really tired, not on a regur basis.

  On the other hand, only the herbalist-alchemist and his granddaughter were skilled individuals who could do useful things with their gifts. The two ordinary gifted, an ordinary boy even younger than Stepan, and an adult thirty-year-old master craftsman, could only do the most basic things with their gifts. They spent most of their energy on checking and recharging household amulets, for the sake of which they were kept, otherwise, they were burdened with the minimum of work. The guard was only involved in security and looked at suspicious pces with his magical eyesight, seeing if anyone was trying to slip or sneak any trash. There was a gssblower with a tiny gift, but it didn't work out; he had to buy equipment and materials, so Trabius gave the appropriate recommendations and sent the man to the gssblowing shop, where he was still working and was considered a senior foreman.

  "Eat, Pann, eat, and if you need more, just ask." The smiling cook was a caring dy and treated the people around her as if they were eternal children, but she saw Stepan, who was thin and permanently pale, as a victim of the hungry years and tried to feed him. "You are pale again, gods are my witnesses. How long can it be, eh? If you overwork again, you'll die with a stroke, mark my word! You've been doing magic all night again, no other way!"

  Stepan involuntarily lowered his gaze because Friya was one hundred percent right. He'd spent the whole night practicing, regaining his reserve with meta-skills again. It had been three and a half weeks since he'd come to this farmstead, and he'd hardly ever scked off. Of course, it wasn't his work that he did not sck off, but his self-development in his underground shelter, which expined his pallor. Sunshine was cking at times, it was a fact, but otherwise, his underground stronghold met and even exceeded his expectations. His experience was growing by leaps and bounds, threatening to give him level twenty-seven in the shortest possible time, and he was also developing without level increases, both in terms of knowledge and simply by expanding his contract base, for which he had so many offerings that it was a bit embarrassing.

  "Thank you, Aunty Fria, it's delicious. I'll ask for more." To the harmless ughter of the witnesses, who themselves had been subjected to the quacking of the cook, the young man went to the table and began to eat, continuing the phrase with inaudible muttering under his nose. "It's like being back in the vilge to my grandmother again, listening to compints about how terribly thin I've lost weight. If I had lost even a millimeter of weight for every phrase like that, I would have already vanished into oblivion."

  The very first major call Stepan performed in those first days was an invocation to a rather amusing, strong spirit of a suggestive type with the properties of a cloak-and-dagger, to which he had picked up a whole team of small spirits that complemented their counterpart quite well. This spirit was constantly hovering around the farmstead, following the contract which he assured with his own essence while having little influence on the random individuals in this farmstead. He touched only the minds of those who had no defenses and influenced them so weakly and insignificantly that it was possible to notice such an effect only with deep scanning and almost second-by-second review of the day's events. It was not some complex images or long-pying commands, but the most ordinary appearance of the one who had summoned it, i.e. Stepan.

  Those who had been touched by this spirit, who had been under contract for nearly seven years, were certain that they had seen this newcomer, Pann. Recently, just about ten or fifteen minutes ago. They couldn't remember where exactly, but he'd been here for sure. And it is not an obsessive thought, no, it just remains in the back of consciousness and, if someone from the managers or even the main boss personally, would suddenly ask, the employee would say, say, he saw this Pann somewhere over there, will not say exactly where. At the same time, another spirit, also strong, also suggestive but closer to the shades of the aspect of words, constantly followed the questions and speeches of Trabius, his closest assistants, and the inhabitants of the farmstead. If someone suddenly began to look for Pann, he sent the shaman a corresponding signal-image.

  Yes, the guy wouldn't interrupt a complex call or expose himself to the risk of getting a rollback from the interrupted dialog, but whenever possible and not being busy, he came to the call. He came literally. A couple of steps through the contour of the door, and he found himself in a closet room, with the windows always shuttered and always dark, which pyed the role of his "boratory". There he made his anti-mouse works. He had to interrupt his working day in the underground cave only twice, and that was only because he once wanted to ask a couple of questions about his cat-spirit, and the second time he forgot to get paid for the closed decade of perfect bor. Now, when he was fixing the bully's nose, he had a self-appointed day off, so he, who was resting, was hired for a part-time job. The guy did not refuse, but only because the degenerate, who had been beaten up qualitatively, had an aneurysm, and his kidneys were close to complete failure, so he had to be saved.

  The rest of the time he checked in only for breakfast and dinner, and not always for dinner. He spent in the shelter most of the time turning it into an even more convenient pce for work and development. The guy never took up the summoning of the elder spirits; he simply did not find the time, but he had already completed all the necessary preparations so soon he would be able to move on to the shamanic rituals that had recently seemed like a crazy risk. But no, the elder spirits were only a secondary goal of these weeks. He put his main efforts into creating a reinforced totem contour, an additional protective and supporting array, as well as consolidating power over his cave using territorial magic methods. Stepan was creating a new clearing for himself, only not in the forest, but underground. He did it no worse, and due to his significantly expanded status better and faster.

  Since leaving Lyady, his work with totems had been fragmentary, relegated to the second or even third pn. And even there, towards the end of his stay, he had spent much more time on territorial control and working with arrays of spiritual influences. And totems? Well, a support and a basis, important and useful, but no more, just a foundation for the coming impact, unsightly and somewhat gging behind the rest of the skill. Now he had gotten his big bck boulder, and it was not only illogical, but trivially impossible, unrealistic even! Even in the first days, just by creating a bnk for the central totem from that stone pilr, a miniature dolmen, he increased his knowledge by a rank up. The day before yesterday, at the very night, having time to go to dinner and return underground, he raised the same knowledge again, having acquired the status of "advanced work with totems".

  The third rank of the long gging knowledge gave a lot of ways, which should have been avaible to him much earlier, making totems a tool not only powerful but also much more flexible. The very root of this knowledge was to fill the totems more densely and weightily with his will and influence. His new creations had more spirits, more embedded contractual anchors, and reinforcing structures, and they were becoming deeper and more multifaceted. Where before he had been forced to make separate totems for each aspect of even reted spheres, now he could combine and remake those aspects and shuffle them as needed. This was complemented by the ability to work with already completed totems, to supplement and strengthen them, which is quite logical. Unlike cssic artifacts, totems can be handled the same way as altars, improving them as needed and desired.

  The cascade of synergistic reinforcements turned this knowledge into such a useful line that the young man involuntarily felt a pang of regret for not choosing the totemist branch for development. He also understood why he was offered this branch as a specialization of the main css, despite the fact that his totem skill was at the very beginning level. He had unintentionally used many more advanced techniques and tricks, just relying on synergy with the same territorial influence. The essence of totemic mastery really perfectly lies on the witchcraft or envoltive practices, literally one in the same, from which there was such a mutually reinforcing retionship. However, the guy did not regret his choice, realizing that the Comprehending also had its advantages, and these advantages clearly outweighed those of the Totemist. Let's return to the synergy. Its most vivid manifestations concerned, of course, the very witchcraft and envolts. And they really touched on a rge scale, loading the consciousness with images for long hours, which had to be spent in the usual rexed meditation.

  Work with territorial support, both in rituals and in rooting the totem, calling spirits with increased reliance on the totem or directly into the totem, bypassing manifestation in reality. The tter perfectly helped to work with those entities that do not come to the real world in principle or simply can not come due to certain limitations. The same approach opened up very funny methods of transforming oneself into a temporary or permanent ersatz totem, combining the methodology of constructing these totems and the skills of indwelling. Not just one or even a few spirits, but literally an integral dormitory within himself, with the ability to choose which Pokémon to activate, which Pokémon to summon normally, or to use battle fusion. An extremely harsh and risky trick, making it very difficult to evolve and literally eating away some of the reserve and characteristics on a permanent basis. You've made a deal with a fme spirit to let you breathe fire while it lives inside you? Now you can activate it at any moment and breathe out that fme, but the part of the aura allocated for the totemization of the spiritual body, for turning yourself into a living artifact, is now permanently mutited in a special way and can not be used for anything else. Only for the activation of fire breath, which can be made stronger, more flexible, and brighter, but still cannot be turned into water or thunder breath.

  In fact, an individual auric node turns into a totem. For this purpose, it will be necessary to literally conduct over themselves analogs of the necessary rituals - heavy, costly, and even painful. Without a system, this approach would create very narrowly honed, though damn strong pseudo-mages, whose abilities would be more like natural mutations than direct magic. Even with the System, an Earthling would not be willing to limit himself so much, literally turning himself into a constantly improved and supplemented Lego set. It's certainly a tie-in to getting into a very unusual school of magic, but definitely not his way too much this approach requires, and too many paths cut off. But you don't have to do such a horror to yourself! The same methods of putting spirits in dolls were perfect here. You perform the operation and ritual not on yourself, but on such a living doll, turning an ordinary bandit caught behind the city wall into a kind of pseudo-mage, which can due to the connection with the spirits apply a dozen separate influences at once.

  Lightning, cooling blood, rotting bones, healing wounds, summoning rain, manifesting five battle spirits into reality or something else. It's easy, though there won't be much left of a person, and the mind won't be able to exist without the support of a puppet, into which the main consciousness of a person will have to be transferred. And all this without taking away the possibility of then additionally pnting in the body of a combat entity of high rank, especially if all totem-prosthetic modifications of thin bodies to do under a particur spirit, which itself in this living totem to pnt, so as not to call then. It was no longer like cssical shamanism, here, from shamanism only worked with the spiritual reflection of the totem billet, the main role was given to puppet mastery, but not only. There was something from artifacting, necromancy, and spiritual chimerization, and in general, all this was a step away from working directly with the soul. Here, the knowledge of the system fell short, cking erudition. But the very fact that it was possible was impressive.

  The methods of working with witch power through the totem array, which is much more useful in the near future, were also quite memorable. The thing is actually quite obvious if you know how to do it, but you can't figure it out yourself until the system prompts you and guides you by the hand. The point is that usually the adept of witchcraft himself gradually subdues the territory, slowly, then puts more effort, then rests, or even concentrates on not losing the received power, rolling back. In the new method, the essence is to summon quite rare and strong spirits from the very amusing combinations of aspects, which first affinity with the power and authority of the shaman-caster, then settle in totems, and then begin, pretending to be a shaman in front of the universe itself, to strengthen the shamanic- witchcraft power over the earth. Of course, there is a limit to this approach, especially at the current rank; there are ways to turn this approach against the user, but still. It is a very significant gas pedal in the process of rooting power, especially at the initial stages. There are also options for doing the same, but without summoning spirits, but there totems are not quite totems, much closer to witch altars, and the process is somewhat more difficult.

  Even now, his rge cobblestone, one of the additional functions, fulfills such a role, Stepan was not zy to summon the necessary spirits. These spirits do not so much root the influence of the shaman as accelerate his territorial expansion, acting as amplifiers and resonators under the shaman. He tried out many new tricks in practice, putting all his talent and skill into the power-soaked stone putting all his systemic power into this super-totem. The stone itself is now inscribed with the third variation of a bunch of signs on its entire surface, except for the one that is in contact with the stone floor, literally fused with it and almost putting down stone roots to permeate the space of the cave. Yes, yes, the third variation, because the material of the totem could become as malleable as raw cy without any damage to its quality so it could be marked or erased.

  The central totem, eighteen simpler totems to supplement the base, a few summoned spirits to support the camoufge defense that had synergized with the Revealer, additional arrangements with the Opener himself, who could now rely on a totem that was almost perfectly suited to him, control of the earth, or rather, the stone, the relocation of most of the already contracted spirits to new homes and totems. The Earthman was not idle. In its current form, his work was not even finished. He had only just reached the level of firm confidence that it was possible to work without the risk of attracting the attention of the locals. The young man was categorically satisfied with himself, and even the need to go to work did not irritate him too much, allowing him to gain or even exceed the norm of social contacts, which he assigned himself to prevent feralization.

  When he had finished his dinner and remembered to thank the cook, he took a leisurely walk into the city, pnning to visit the market, to see a performance, maybe even to check out a brothel. The main problem was that it wasn't easy to get into the best of these establishments, though a gifted one would be allowed in, most likely, and he didn't want to go to the simpler ones. The problem was that he hadn't made enough money to go on vacation in the Blue Orchid, and if he started spending more than he could afford, he'd attract attention. As they used to say on Earth, the IRS is the evil that never sleeps. Putting jokes aside, they are not retards living here and noticing that the boy-gifted got a purse of silver from somewhere to pay for three beauties for the night... well, anyone would have enough brains for that. The boy didn't want to agree to anything less, it would be easier to call Sylvia again, so that she, full of pride and conceit, could punish her toy with passionate sex in all possible positions.

  * * *

  During his stay in Dantmark, the shaman had so far received only tiny quests, or Autodivine quests issued by Her Milfeischestvo. The only quest in the rank of small, which Stepan brilliantly completed, was to summon several strong spirits with specialization in working with groundwater - in his cave, such summons were given fantastically easily. He'd managed to get a couple of those summoned into long-term contracts, which could be useful. Not to stop a mudflow by redirecting it away, then to organize the failure of the earth into an underground current right under the hooves of a cavalry formation. For this not-so-difficult assignment, he gained a meager amount of experience, some increased affinity with spheres in general and water in particur, and the random meta-skill.

  A random choice gave Stepan a "constant inflow of experience I" - a thing very useful in the long term, but of little use right now, especially at only the first level. According to his estimates, this skill, which gives a constant daily increase of a fixed amount of experience, slightly increasing with level, but slower than the experience requirements themselves grow, will allow him to take the twenty-seventh in about six months to a year. And that's considering he's already gained three-quarters of the required experience! You can fully utilize this meta-skill by pumping it much higher or simply by being a very long-lived individual who doesn't like to work at all. The ideal is to lie on your back, listen to the blues, and in a couple of hundred years you'll have a plus twenty levels... well, or even more. If you're actually some kind of elf, that doesn't sound very dumb!

  Also, the isekai put a new specialty item of the store into the shopping queue, taking up the second of the five waiting slots. It was purely a shamanic totem with a contracted spirit, a higher spirit of course. The spirit was from the realm of both water and wind, with aspects of a very cool weatherman, and its abilities allowed it to both create perfect irrigation in the middle of a desert, bringing rain clouds to that desert, and overwhelm the enemy army with a mighty storm and tornado. Not his most needed type of entity, not a pure fighter, but rather a sturdy universalist, and yet he still drooling with greed. As, even though the System currency reserves replenished after the teleportation quest could pay off the purchase, and a lot left, there were too many pns hanging behind him. Including the one reted to attacking the demonic threat. If Stepan wanted to summon a suitable hunting and retrieval pack of infernal junk eaters he should save his money. Such exotic summons require equally exotic consumables and offerings, which are not represented in the token gifts.

  All these thoughts did not prevent Stepan, who had a legal day off, from going around the crowds, munching on a criminally delicious berry-filled pie - raspberry-honey, but with a hint of bitterness, clearly a local crop - and enjoying the weather. The heat of te, which heralded the end of the st month of spring, had receded today in the cool breeze, and even the stench of the medieval city did not bother him as he walked through the shopping district adjacent to the noble quarter. In this contemption mode, thinking over his first call of the elder spirit, for which everything was ready, Stepan was forced to py the savior of teenagers.

  When a powerful procession on horseback rode down the street - without the coat of arms of the aristocracy, Stepan noted it automatically, but the carriage itself was very rich, and the guards were well-equipped, bearing the insignia of a trading house - the young man only reflexively moved closer to the edge of the street and the walls of the houses. It wasn't the Middle Ages of the dung centuries, they didn't pour slop out of the windows, or rather, not in this neighborhood, and if they did, they would get a quick smack on the face, so the boy wasn't afraid to move against the wall. But some small degenerate dropped his tattered beret right under the horse's hooves and immediately rushed to pick it up. He was in time, he was not that suicidal, though hardly ten years old. But he stumbled and sprawled right in the middle of the road, five paces from Stepan. Someone shrieked in a woman's voice, someone managed to turn his head in surprise, and the kid said something that sounded suspiciously like the Confederate version of the word "tralz". Stepan said the same thing, but in an earthy and therefore incomprehensible dialect, reflexively activating his meta-skill of time dition, buying him a moment or two to think. He wasn't going to leave the boy without rescue, of course, but he was thinking of ways to pull him out in the least suspicious way possible.

  Having found a suitable spirit among his contracts, the guy jumped toward the boy, stretching out his arm and grabbing his colr with the teeth of a ghostly and almost invisible snake that slipped from the sleeve right out of the bracelet on his wrist. Having fixed the contact, he simply and without any fancy, tugged the little asshole on himself, pulling him literally from under the hooves of the advanced horse, at the same time frightening the horse. The snake was almost invisible to the human eye, but the beast saw it and was frightened. A thoroughbred, but not trained for combat. A real knight's nag, as Stepan knew from the System Encyclopedia, even if it had not been modified by a chimerologist, could not be scared of fire and other manifestations of battle magic. Such a horse of that spirit would still try to bite, if not to bite, then to pet with a hoof with an enchanted horseshoe.

  Time resumed its run, Stepan stood up, shook himself off, picked up the pale kid still clutching his beret by the scruff of his neck, and then shifted abruptly on his toes, obeying his ingrained reflexes and stopping them at the st moment. Instead of attacking the threat, he simply raises his arms in a defensive gesture and reinforces them with a shield from the body of an air sphere spirit. This spirit stops the sh, a rather strong blow that could plow through flesh to the bone if it hit bare skin and light clothing would not be a hindrance. The spirit stopped the blow, making the whip slide to the side. A hoarse growl like the cssic, "What the fuck?" - was never uttered when Stepan caught a glimpse of the man who had tried to beat him.

  Apparently, their chief was not riding in a carriage, which was a freight carriage, but among his men: short, curly-haired, a little dark-eyed, expensively dressed with the mark of a trading house on his shoulder, and if he were an aristocrat, he would also have a coat of arms on his chest, as well as a look full of contempt and irritation at the same time. He seemed to notice the fact that Stepan had nullified his blow, which infuriated him even more, so he swung again, and Stepan, in turn, slowed down time again and began to convince himself that he couldn't kill this shit right here because it was against conspiracy and would ruin his whole legend. Consciousness and spirits of meanings caught the spoken and unspoken words, showing the reason for such behavior, and causing a new attack of irritation. The vigint guards, among whom he sees a full-fledged adept of fire magic and a slightly weaker barrier-bearer, keep a close eye on the insolent upstart, ready to intervene if necessary. What need is there, though, if this petty shit can't even scratch the outer line of the lord's amuletic protection?

  The shaman makes a decision, impnting the spirit into the body, stealthily strengthening it just beneath the camoufge of the Shroud, making the skin and muscles as hard as bog oak. He tilts his body slightly again, so that the blow is on his shoulder and chest, not his face, or it would give away the disguise, and he drops to a knee as if to crouch in pain. A bad fire is ripening in his chest and the guy's patience is decreasing; the figurative ice under the horses' hooves is already cracking from the tension, but the earthman pushes his pride even lower, bowing in an apologetic bow.

  "I apologize, honorable ones, I didn't mean to disturb your path." He didn't call the ghoul a gentleman, especially since he wasn't a nobleman, even though, technically, representatives of the high trading houses were no different from them. "Don't be angry, honorable."

  There was no new blow, though the man was obviously tempted, but he was in a hurry to deal with a random obstacle that dared to frighten his horse. He didn't care about Stepan and the boy, who had already successfully run away while they weren't looking at him, and he struck only because insolence must be punished always, for status is everything. If you let it go once, even three hundred thousand times, to save the life of some ragamuffin, you will leave a stain on that status.

  "Get out of here, you peasant." He bellowed, which to an obviously gifted, albeit equally obviously self-taught, was an insult, literally on the edge of decency and a little beyond it. "Get out!"

  They left, and the guards gave Stepan, who was still bent over, careful gnces, not even knowing that he could see them all, and the st of them also added a sh from himself. Though no, it was not a guard, but an assistant, his clothes were too fshy and he was young. He looked like their chief. He whipped him heartily, but without skill, he ripped the shirt on his back, but did not bleed... well, the tter is understandable, he should have been able to get blood through the stiffened and strengthened flesh. Stepan got up only when the cavalcade of horsemen dismounted along the street. He led it with an unreadable gnce, and locals met him. Everybody saw how he got his kicks, and there were kind people, though Stepan continued to watch his pockets, and one of the "helpers" also watched the pockets of the victim of arbitrariness. When he realized that Stepan was not losing consciousness from the pain and was still looking at him attentively, he became noticeably bored and changed his mind about helping him. He was not a thief from the nightmen, just a grabber and a bastard who decided to take advantage of the moment.

  "My thanks to you, your magic. I have three daughters, and a son, stupid, one, and I was almost left without one." The master carpenter, judging by the guild mark, a small boss over a couple or three journeymen and a handful of apprentices, was really grateful and kept trying to shove into Stepan's hand a hastily prepared purse with copper and silver in not-too-equal proportions, thanking him for saving his heir. "Why did he need that fucking beret so badly? I didn't see it myself, but my apprentice, Shlos, told me about it. I'm very uncomfortable, your magic, for my boy has brought you under the sh. It's not a good thing when you have to punish for a good deed.

  Stepan didn't hesitate, he accepted the reward - the spirits and his intuition said that refusal would only offend him and make him wary - without looking, hanging it on his belt, the intensity of which allowed him to look at the purse with X-ray dimensional perception. The boy standing behind his father and a whole group of his friends and retives was sniffing his nose, and on his cheek, he had a red mark from a sp. He didn't care about the magician who had saved him, he didn't even understand how he had risked it, but his ass foresaw a birching, and it seemed to be with salt.

  "It's all right, honorable." Stepan addressed him politely and without conflict, obviously calming him down because another magician would not hesitate to snap back at least verbally for getting into trouble in such a way if there was not enough strength, gift, and position for physical. "And who was this honorable gentleman, if you know? I'm new in town. I've only just got a job, and I haven't been able to see the coats of arms of the houses of commerce."

  The calmed craftsman, whose name was, surprise surprise, Kirik, his eye twitched at the coincidence, answered quite willingly, at the same time inviting the boy into the house, sitting at the table, and sharing the dinner. Stepan didn't refuse, and he wanted to get answers to his questions, so he listened attentively, asking crifying questions and eating boiled potatoes with fried onions, butter, and dill, drinking fresh milk, bought only today from the carriers, and chilled at the icehouse. The youngest of the daughters, a freckled girl of about fifteen, was offering fresh pieces to her brother's savior with sincere sympathy, for she loved her brother. Kirik the Second noticed this demonstrative non-observation, which only rejoiced, for he, of course, was grateful to the visiting magician, but not to the same extent to break the already made engagement.

  He had been told about the man who liked to punish the peasants for their insolence, and in detail, because he was a well-known person. He was a representative of the trading house of de Marek, famous not only for his trade but also for his skill as a fur trapper. In fact, his imminent arrival in the city and his demonstration of exotic talking birds from the distant jungles of the south had recently been advertised by specially hired shouters. And in that carriage, it turned out, were those very birds, obviously belonging to the local parrots, maybe even magical ones. Stepan listened to all this, thanked for the dinner, refused help in patching his shirt, assured that he was able to protect himself from the blow, and then said goodbye, leaving behind a spirit-suggestor, which blurred the impression that this small, gifted nerd could make his body invulnerable to direct damage.

  When he returned to the farmstead, he did not retell his story and hid the tear in his shirt by averting the gaze, going straight to bed. Or rather, "to sleep", because immediately he connected to his doll and began to learn about the honorable Ilhero de Marek - in fact, these trading houses even have an aristocratic prefix "de"! - already from her memory. And the wise bloodsucker knew much more than just a random craftsman, and from not the most influential workshop. Yes, it was indeed one of the direct members of the ruling family, specializing in exotic luxury goods and live goods. Exclusively and only unreasonable live goods, as officially speaking. But in practice, of course, just the hands were not caught. To return from a long trading expedition without a couple or three elite sves or sve girls, one had to be a complete ignoramus.

  This aggressive man came to the glorious Free City of Dantmark to show his birds. And also to present them to the favorite granddaughter of Herbert de Dantrel, who is known to be a great lover of animals in general and birds in particur. Like a princess from an Evil Corp. cartoon, really. In a few days, these birds will be shown to the public. Some of them on the main square, those that are simpler and not particurly valuable, and some of them, the most magical, perfect familiars, and even intelligent at the level of a goblin, will be presented in the grand ballroom of the ducal pace. There birds will be presented to the object "Granddaughter", all at once or the most elite only, thus earning the recognition of her grandfather and preferences to the trading house. Well, such a calcution, but it is very true. A man came in, not a mage, by the way, and not a beast catcher, but just a trade specialist, for which mages and beast catchers work, made gifts for everyone, will please the granddaughter, pay for all who need it. And stuff like that.

  De Marek, their whole house, had been trying for the ninth year to get into Dantmark's trade affairs without soap under the sluggish and gradually weakening resistance of the local bosses, and now the forced, albeit temporary, closure of the De Faler trade mission had made it possible to seize the moment and get into a new field. Now, neither Sylvia nor anyone else had much doubt that these guys would be here for a long time, and the attempts to reopen the De Faler representative office, with a completely new staff, resembled agony and unwillingness to give up without a fight. The guys were lucky to exist at all, there was a high probability that they would be eaten up not by the sun-lovers, but simply by their competitors. They should have been eaten, but the new head of the company, who was repced during the crisis, managed to surprise everyone and found somewhere huge loans, which he used to cover the crisis debts and took some more on top. Stepan would have gone into these details much more deeply. But he was interested not in politics and the background of political events, but in more substantive things - like the location of the pce where this honorable gentleman lived. In the mind of the shaman, very offended and angry as a thousand devils, a pn of revenge was rapidly forming. It was funny enough, appropriate enough, and would require neither unnecessary blood nor any perversion.

  The earthling indignantly rejected the average quest from Her Milfness, which required to make Alveri de Marek, the native son of Ilhero de Marek, a handsome femboy, or even to change his sex completely, and to make his father bewitched to the result. He had seen both bastards in the grave, but he wasn't going to kill them. They hadn't killed him, and they hadn't tried to. It was just that they had hurt him, not physically, but very morally offensive, so he would do the same.

  Because fuck it.

  * * *

  T.N. More chapters ahead on Patreon. Free trial.